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It just dawned on me that this word is not from Latin word for skin, e.g. prepuce, but from pulex (flea) , from French "pou, pl. poux = flea. Pooh! I should have thought of that sooner!
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in the better late than never catagory, a comment on puce
puce is defined (in art books, i don't have a handy dictionary to check out their defination) as the color of a flea's belly. (a full belly after a meal of blood!) color books (like the Pantone Book of Colors, based on the Pantone system of inks and dyes) gives names to all their colors and point out most are atractive imaginative and interesting. --some are history, and included inspite of the imagery, Bladder green, liver and puce. Puce is actually a not unpretty color, somewhere between brown and purple, sort of the color of a fudgesickle (a chocolate ice bar) mixed with grape..darker than a cinnamon or russet, but in the same reddish/purple family.
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Pooh-Bah
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Tells you something about that ticklish period - the first thing that came to mind when looking at the colour was, "Oh, look - just the same colour as a flea's belly! We'll call it puce." Everyone would know what colour you were talking about. "Buy these puce sheets and you won't see another flea!"
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Joke on me I thought it was the color of an untanned prepuce.
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Carpal Tunnel
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"...The lady who dyes a chemical yellow Or stains her grey hair puce Or pinches her figger Is painted with vigour (I know, I know) With permanent walnut juice..."
--in "My Object All Sublime," sung by The Mikado in Act II
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wofahulicodoc's excerpt from the Mikado inspired me to look up the whole song. The lines about the punishment of the billiard sharp had a word in it that some of us may not know: A finger stall, also called finger cot, is a covering for just the finger, when injured, or doing something that might injure the finger. I have often seen cashiers using them when counting currency.
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Carpal Tunnel
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...It's such a grotesque image as to be hilarious:
"The billiard sharp whom anyone catches, His doom's extremely hard: He's made to dwell in a dungeon cell In a spot that's always barred. And there he plays extravagant matches In fitless finger-stalls, On a cloth untrue With a twisted cue And elliptical billiard balls !"
Now, all you billiard sharps, what does "barred" mean in this context? I know it on the guitar, but this is a ball of another color.
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And then there are oversized finger stalls....... A surgeon while putting on his gloves, noticed that the patient, a lady, looked a bit apprehensive, in spite of her premedication. So he told her that before he went to medical school, he had a job making rubber gloves by dipping his hands into liquid latex, then dipping them into a liquid which made the latex cure into goves, over and over again, all day long. The patient burst out laughing. The surgeon, surprised by her thinking his joke so funny, asked her to explain. "I was picturing you making condoms!"
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I bet fiberbabe knows finger cot's-- several different style thimbles for quilters are still called finger cots. often made from leather, the are like little leather caps to protect you fingers. but i have never heard them called finger stalls. ( i am not a G & S fan, so i don't know the word to any of their tunes)
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Dear of troy: Old time sail makers had a piece of tough leather that covered the base of the palm, and was used to push strong needles through a sail. My dictionary has a second word "palm" meaning ventral surface of hand, and as fourth definition gives a piece of leather to protect had in sail making.
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